What are the differences between PNG, GIF, and JPEG image formats, and what are their advantages and disadvantages?
These are all commonly used image formats, and you need to understand their characteristics to apply them in the most suitable scenarios.
Among them, PNG is a format that currently uses more by designers. Its full forum is Portable Network Graphics. Therefore, this is a picture format developed specifically for network transmission.
The PNG format has many advantages, such as support for 24-bit true color, support for alpha channel transparency/translucency, lossless compression, etc. It is very suitable for saving charts, patterns, logos, etc., with clear effects and small files.
Let’s compare the difference between PNG and JPEG and GIF.
What are the differences between PNG and jpeg formats, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
JPEG is a picture format that everyone is more familiar with, and photos usually taken are basically saved in this format.
The reason why JPEG is widely used is that it uses a unique compression code for photo-type pictures, which can compress photo images, especially photos with smooth color transitions, into very small files.
At the same time, JPEG also has a fatal disadvantage, that is, it is a lossy compression. Every time it is saved, it will lose details and reduce the quality of the picture. So many pictures on the Internet, as the number of reprints increases, the pictures will be saved again and again, and they will become more and more blurred.
The PNG format does not have this shortcoming, it is lossless compression, and the image quality will not decrease even after saving it many times. Therefore, PNG is suitable for saving tables, text, lines, e-books, and pictures with large areas of color blocks. It is also very suitable for saving logo pictures.
When saving this type of picture, PNG can have a larger compression ratio than JPEG without loss of quality, ensuring that the text, lines, and edges are clear and lossless, and the file is smaller. What affects the size of the PNG is mainly the number of colors contained in the image. The less the color, the smaller the image.
Therefore, PNG is not suitable for storing photos with rich colors. The same picture is saved in JPEG and PNG formats, and the PNG format file will be much larger if it is not distinguishable by the naked eye. Of course, if it is a photo with a simple color and shape, it can also be saved as a PNG, the file will not be too large, or lossless compression.
The difference between PNG and GIF formats and their advantages and disadvantages
GIF pictures are not unfamiliar to everyone, GIF animated pictures, GIF dynamic expressions. GIF natively supports dynamic pictures, but PNG cannot.
In recent years, APNG and MNG formats that support dynamics have also been developed on the basis of PNG, but these formats are not very popular, and many browsers do not support them, and mainstream image software does not support direct storage, so these PNG dynamic formats have a very promising future. dim.
GIF is not only used to save dynamic images but can also be saved as static images. Before the popularization of PNG, LOGO, charts, and other images suitable for PNG storage were mostly saved in GIF format, with small images and high lossless compression quality.
After the popularity of PNG, this kind of pictures will be saved as PNG, because its picture files will be smaller and the compression rate will be higher. Therefore, if it is not dynamic pictures and photos, they are usually saved in PNG format.
Both PNG and GIF support transparency effects, but GIF only supports 1-bit Boolean transparency channels, that is, it can only be completely transparent and completely opaque, and does not support translucent transitions.
But PNG can support up to 256 transparency levels, which can achieve a smooth transition and gradual transparency effect. When storing some LOGO files and watermark files, only PNG format can be used to save them.
